Free Timeless Desire by Gwyn Cready Page B

into his arms to reach the eyepiece. The lock of hair fell forward again.
    “Come, come,” he said. “We can’t have this. Keep your eyes on the path.” He pulled a pale green ribbon from the map. He removed the combs in her hair, letting the tresses fall across her shoulders.
    “Tis like a thousand rays of sunshine,” he said gravely.
    She gathered the hair to one side of her shoulder, and he fumbled twice before tying the satin in a neat bow.
    “Thank you.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
    She bent to the eyepiece and he held up his hand. “Wait. See, the star there?” She tucked herself against him to follow his line of sight.
    “Yes. It’s part of the Big Dipper.”
    “The Big Dipper?” He examined the sky. “Oh, aye. I suppose so. In Cumbria, tis called the Butcher’s Cleaver.”
    “So that’s what you meant!”
    He chuckled. “Aye. Tis an ugly name, I suppose, but it certainly fits the sensibilities of this place. Look at the second star from the end. In the sky, not through the telescope.”
    She gazed where he pointed. “It’s larger than the rest. It almost looks like it’s pulsing.”
    “Now through the scope.”
    She looked again. “Oh! It’s two stars! They’re so close!”
    “Like lovers circling one another in a dance, I’ve always thought. Slowly falling in love. And someday they will be as one.”
    Their eyes met, and Panna thought he would kiss her again, but he busied himself with the adjustments self-consciously. “I am eager to see them more clearly. My scope is good, but I hear in Leiden they are developing even more powerful lenses. Perhaps someday . . .”
    He must have seen a movement in the courtyard, for he turned abruptly. “Private Swenson. Tis time.”
    Her heart lurched.
    He grabbed the bag he’d prepared. “Now, remember: three minutes from the time Thorpe and Coyne break from Swenson and Baker. No more, no less. And remember to descend two flights.”
    “Two flights. Yes.”
    He slid the note back into her hands. “I don’t know who you really are, Panna, but you say you are not a spy, and I want to believe you. If you could take this to the home of my servant, Clare, it would mean so much. He can tell you the rest. I shouldn’t ask you to risk yourself, I know. And, in truth, the things I strive for will survive whether you deliver it or not, but it would mean a great deal, and not just to me.”
    She shook her head and tried to give the note back, but he pressed it into her hand. Then he threw his arms around her and kissed her. “Come back to me, Panna. Let us stop time together. I don’t know when I’ve spent a more enjoyable evening.”
    He flew down the stairs.
    She exhaled as his last steps died away. A long moment passed before she had mastered her emotions. She looked down. Coyne and Thorpe were gone. How much time had gone by?
    She tiptoed down the stairs, two flights as he’d instructed, though the staircase descended even farther, which is where Bridgewater must have gone. She ran through the passageway under the library and up the stairs on the other side. Since she’d lost track of time, she decided she’d count to sixty—this time without letting her mind wander—and slip out. According to Bridgewater, she’d be in the hall that ran between the chapel and the library.
    By the count of thirty, she was quaking so much, she couldn’t wait any longer. She opened the door. She was in the hallway she remembered from before. After three steps a distant shout pierced the night—“You, there! Stop, I say!”— followed immediately by a pistol shot.
    Her heart leapt in her chest, and she sprinted into the chapel and through the half door, slamming it soundly behind her.
    Her hands shook as she fumbled with the key, and it wasn’t until she had safely locked the triangular door behind her that she noticed the man standing, back to her, outside the darkened door of the Carnegie Library.
    He waved when he saw her and gave her a generous